This is my sea material. Best used with Mordor fractal generated terrain. Terrain 3D size: 150*15*150 BU. It's good to place this terrain above black infinite plane to give sense of "abyss". Slow rendering with IBL.

ooh, that's good! Water, simple as it seems, can be quite a challenge. I like the hint you give about the black colored ground plane to add a sense of depth. Most artists would use lowered transparency or really high refraction, but this has a negative effect on the transparency so using a black ground plane produces better results. Thanks for the other hint regarding the terrain surface used. Now when it comes to terrains and water materials, the material will look very different when the terrain mesh is set to a "solid" as apposed to the default "hollow" setting. Which setting do you usually prefer for the terrain?

11.17.2007 18:25

rashadcarter1
Admin

Join Date: 06.04.2006Comments: 2615

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Oh, yeah, what technique are you using to add the foam? I have noticed that Nimos has excellent water effects and creates amazingly convincing water splashes and the like with no particle systems. Your techniques are just as effective so I figured you might be able to offer a hint or two as to how you do it. Thanks.

11.17.2007 21:01

davidbrinnen
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Join Date: 01.03.2004Comments: 2227

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A fine looking sea material, thank you for sharing it with us!

11.18.2007 16:29

Horo
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Join Date: 05.26.2004Comments: 4405

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Thanks for sharing this with us. I have yet to use it before I will be able to fully appreciate it.

11.20.2007 20:31

Popgriffon
Member

Join Date: 03.10.2005Comments: 59

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Thanks for your comments.
This material is mented to be used with default "hollow" terrain, solid will render longer and look worse without some tweaks.. I hardly use solid terrains - only when doing booleans. This material has the foam built-in, so in many cases that will do, but when I need more foam, I add wake/splash object with "popfoam" material (material need some polish now - it's terribly slow) and there's also postwork and 2d brushes..(at deviant art there are free brushes for GIMP and Photoshop)

11.22.2007 11:25

rashadcarter1
Admin

Join Date: 06.04.2006Comments: 2615

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Thanks for the explaination. Your skills are noteworthy. Perhaps at some point you might describe the secret to the terrain modelling, in that creating water terrains all the way to the horizon is very challenging. How do you do it?

11.24.2007 18:45

Popgriffon
Member

Join Date: 03.10.2005Comments: 59

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Well, there's no secret, but explanation is kinda difficult without images. In fact, the terrains don't go to horizon but only far enough to fade in haze. Rest is just tiled terrains and height map ex&importing and editing. And some precise (using numeric pad) scene setting..
Step by step description would make quite long tutorial - there's quite a lot of work to make this sea.